I rushed frantically toward the cave in the Snow Bamboo Forest.

Before I even arrived, I spotted Xie Xuanqing standing at the entrance of the cave in the distance.

He hadn’t left!

He was holding that flute made of snow bamboo in his hand. He had come back for the flute…

I couldn’t quite describe what I was feeling at that moment, nor did I have time to sort it out. I only saw Xie Xuanqing with a serious expression on his face, about to fly toward the tribulation clouds. I hurriedly called out to him loudly: “Xie Xuanqing!”

The wind-riding spell around Xie Xuanqing dissipated. He turned his head to look at me, then immediately frowned.

I ran over, breathless, and heard him ask me: “Why are you here?”

“I…” I tried to think of an excuse in my mind. “Even though I chased you away earlier, I… I still…”

“You know that’s not what I’m asking about.”

I froze: “What are you asking about, then?”

“Those are your tribulation clouds.” He pointed to the clouds on the horizon where lightning was already striking down.

I denied it immediately: “No, they’re not mine.”

But after I denied it, I noticed Xie Xuanqing’s gaze becoming suspicious. I tried to maintain my composure and forced an explanation, “I’m right here now, how could those tribulation clouds possibly be mine?”

Before I could finish explaining, Xie Xuanqing’s wind-riding spell activated again around his body.

I immediately reached out and grabbed his wrist: “Wait!”

He wouldn’t wait…

He turned his hand and seized mine, pulling me up as he prepared to fly into the sky!

My heart raced with panic. Xie Zhuo was over there, and Xiaxia was there too. If Xie Xuanqing pulled me along, forget about whether blood would be fed or not—two people would die right away!

What would be the point then?!

I immediately summoned my energy and cast a thousand-pound weight spell on my feet, firmly anchoring Xie Xuanqing in place: “We can’t go there!”

Xie Xuanqing said nothing, but was determined to leave.

He pulled my hand with greater force, and I could feel my thousand-pound weight spell about to fail. In this critical moment, I shouted without hesitation: “The ‘me’ by the tribulation clouds will be fine! Someone has gone to help! I will survive the tribulation!”

The force pulling me weakened, and at the same time, the heaviness I had been feeling when facing Xie Xuanqing also lightened.

I let out a long sigh, thinking that since things had progressed to this point, there was no need to hide it from him anymore.

I looked up at Xie Xuanqing: “I’ll tell you the truth. I’m not the present me. I am Fu Jiuxia from five hundred years in the future. I know what my fate will become, so you don’t need to worry.”

The wind-riding spell was still swirling beneath Xie Xuanqing’s feet. He looked down at me from above, and after hearing my words, the spell finally disappeared completely. He stood on the ground, silently staring at me.

I somewhat avoided his gaze.

“I’m sorry. It was I who had been deliberately troubling you all this time.”

“I knew that already.”

His answer was completely unexpected.

I stared blankly at Xie Xuanqing. His expression no longer showed the urgency from before, returning to his usual calm indifference: “You have my blood in you, but I never gave it to you. So, I had already guessed that you are not the current Fu Jiuxia.”

My mouth hung open, not knowing what to say.

Thinking back carefully, the first time I met Xie Xuanqing here, he did ask me, “What have you eaten?” but I hadn’t paid much attention to that question at the time.

I suppose he began to have suspicions then, and gradually realized that I was different from the current Xiaxia.

“Before, I didn’t know why you had come back, but today at Cuihu Terrace, I found out…” He lowered his eyes, looking somewhat lonely and desolate. “Your strange antics before… were all to force me to leave.”

My lips moved slightly. Looking at Xie Xuanqing’s face now, I felt that I had wronged him, but I didn’t know how to approach an apology.

At that moment, I suddenly understood why Xie Zhuo would hesitate for so long before saying something.

Because sometimes, when you have too much to say, your throat gets blocked.

I remained silent, but he made a self-mocking remark: “It seems that in the future, I treated you very poorly.”

I covered my face and sighed: “Yes, we got married, and then divorced.”

Xie Xuanqing fell silent. He showed no expression, but I saw his pupils tremble slightly.

Unlike the violent reaction Xie Zhuo had on the day of our divorce, it was still genuine enough for me to feel that he was somewhat emotional and saddened.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Even though you now vow to like me and stay with me forever, in the end, we couldn’t persist to a happy ending.”

Hearing this, he gently closed his eyes, his eyelids hiding the emotions in his eyes.

“Why did I… treat you poorly?”

“You kept everything from me.”

He fell silent, as if realizing that this was indeed something he would do.

I calmly and peacefully told Xie Xuanqing, “But this time coming back, I’ve also come to understand. The root of your hiding everything from me ultimately stemmed from your need to conceal your identity as a Snow Wolf demon. You didn’t want me to know about this identity, so one concealment required countless others to cover it up.”

Those words I never said to Xie Zhuo, I finally told him now: “When we first met, it didn’t matter, because I always thought, I’ll know later, I’ll understand later. But once we were married, it was different. Five hundred years, and I still knew nothing about you. Xie Xuanqing, I had already exhausted all my courage.”

“So… you’ve come back to change the past, to avoid forging this blood oath?”

Hearing these words, I couldn’t help but smile wryly: “Xie Xuanqing, you don’t know how well your future self concealed everything from me. Before coming here, I didn’t even know about your Snow Wolf identity, let alone anything about this blood oath between us. Our divorce was initiated by me, simply because I felt we couldn’t go on living together.”

Xie Xuanqing frowned slightly, looking confused. So I kindly explained.

“Coming here was your own decision.”

Xie Xuanqing was momentarily stunned.

But he was a clever demon; after a brief moment, he turned to look at the tribulation clouds in the sky.

I guessed that he had figured it out.

I decided to lay out the whole truth: “The person helping the other me pass through the tribulation right now is your self from five hundred years in the future.”

Xie Xuanqing gazed at the tribulation clouds, deep in thought, his expression becoming more serious.

“Xie Xuanqing, even though we divorced, I never once thought of erasing our past. Because I believe that someday, I can talk about these things with a smile. Everything I’ve experienced, whether good or bad, makes me more complete. But you’re different…”

Mentioning this, thinking of the past, I changed my tone.

“I don’t know what great hatred you harbor against me. We had just divorced, and within those ten thousand years, you stole my Pangu Fu axe from Kunlun, split open time and space, and insisted on coming back five hundred years to sever our marriage bond, to prevent yourself today from…”

I pointed at the tribulation clouds on the horizon, “feeding me a mouthful of blood.”

Xie Xuanqing silently gazed at the center where the black clouds were gathering.

“And even…” I thought about this matter and still found it somewhat amusing, “before coming here, you even threatened to kill me…”

Xie Xuanqing’s body tensed. He suddenly turned to look at me.

His expression was serious: “I said I want to kill you?”

“Yes, you split open time and space with the Pangu Fu, saying you wanted to come back to rectify your mistake, and that once you returned, you could kill me.” I laughed at him, “It’s just a divorce, why the need for threats of violence? Your future self has poor emotional control…”

Xie Xuanqing’s expression grew even more serious: “I do want to kill you.”

I was stunned: “What did you say?”

“I might truly wish to kill you.”

I was dumbfounded…

I looked at Xie Xuanqing, then at the center of the storm, turned back with a bewildered and incredulous gaze fixed on him: “Why would you want to kill me?”

“I don’t know,” Xie Xuanqing said. “But borrowing the Pangu Fu, splitting open time and space, returning to the past—if I did all this and said those things, then perhaps I truly do wish to come back and kill you.”

With a serious face, he said something that made my brain throb with pain: “I wouldn’t say such things without good reason.”

Xie Xuanqing is Xie Zhuo—he might not fully understand Xie Zhuo, but he understands him better than I do!

Hearing him say this, I became a bit afraid.

Connecting everything and thinking carefully, Xie Zhuo did seem somewhat dangerous…

But still!

“Why?!” After my shock, my heart was filled with confusion. “Why? Why does Xie Zhuo want to kill me? How does he plan to kill me?”

Xie Xuanqing felt there was no time to explain. He grabbed my hand, his wind-riding spell activating again. This time, I didn’t resist at all, quickly removing the thousand-pound weight spell from my feet, practically wishing I could give him an extra push of wind.

Within the tribulation clouds, lightning crisscrossed, the purple and blue electric currents sometimes producing crimson light when they collided. Thunder crashed around us.

While pulling me forward rapidly against the lightning storm, Xie Xuanqing explained: “The blood oath covenant is, for my clan, a lifelong vow that cannot be altered.”

“So you can only change this by going back to the past, I understand that, but what I don’t understand is why Xie Zhuo wants to kill me?”

“In the covenant, my bloodline power compels me to protect you and prevents me from harming you.”

I was momentarily stunned—this was the first time I’d heard about this.

So, the restriction that Xie Zhuo’s Snow Wolf identity placed on him was that once he fed me his blood, I became his mate for life, unchangeable, and he was destined to protect me—it was a command written in his fate.

So, Xie Zhuo telling me again and again that he wouldn’t hit me was true.

So, during our five hundred years of marriage, whenever I fought with Xie Zhuo, it was always one-sided—me attacking while he never struck back, only dodged, until I had no strength left to continue.

Since coming here, Xie Zhuo never hurt me even when furious, and whenever I bled, he could quickly find my location and come to help me…

All these actions were due to the influence of his bloodline power. The blood oath forced him to restrain himself, to protect me.

I thought our marriage ended when we cut the red thread at Yue Lao’s temple. But for him, our Kunlun red thread had no substantive binding power at all. What truly bound him was his destiny.

To truly divorce, he had to return to the past and prevent the blood-feeding.

If he truly harbored killing intent toward me, he would also need to prevent his past self from feeding me blood.

That way, when we returned five hundred years later, there would be no trace of his blood in my body. Without the blood, there would be no blood oath, no marriage bond, no restraint…

He would then be able to kill me.

In my mind, I vividly recall the day we came five hundred years ago.

That day, on the peak of Kunlun Mountain, the fierce wind tugged at our robes and hair. I asked him what exactly he wanted to do. He coldly said:

“I want to rectify my mistake.”

He also said, “Once I return, I will be able to kill you.”

Damn it, Xie Zhuo, so you weren’t joking—you want to kill me?!

I thought we were peacefully divorcing, but you’re planning a crime of passion?!

“Why exactly do you want to kill me?!” Angry and afraid, I couldn’t help but raise my voice to question Xie Xuanqing.

But after a moment of silence, Xie Xuanqing only answered with five words: “I am not him yet.”

I fell silent…

Xie Xuanqing indeed wasn’t Xie Zhuo yet. He had not married me, we hadn’t lived together for five hundred years, and he hadn’t experienced divorce. So, naturally, he didn’t know what Xie Zhuo was thinking about this matter.

Just as I cannot understand why my childhood self would wail so loudly when falling, and my childhood self certainly couldn’t understand why my current self, when falling, would first anxiously look around to see if anyone noticed…

Even the same person, at different times, because of different experiences, cannot empathize with their own emotions from another time.

The current him wants to save me; the future him wants to kill me.

The same person, at different times, can have completely opposite attitudes toward the same thing, both relative and unified.

This world is truly full of incomprehensible contradictions…

Why Xie Zhuo wanted to do this, perhaps only Xie Zhuo himself at this moment could answer.

“You must drink my blood,” Xie Xuanqing said, as if making a vow.

I weighed my options internally.

Whether Xie Zhuo wanted to kill me or not, I couldn’t be certain yet. This was still just a possibility.

Xie Xuanqing might be wrong in his guess, or he might be right.

If I followed the plan I had with Xie Zhuo, preventing Xie Xuanqing from feeding blood to Xiaxia, what I would get is—Xie Zhuo achieving his goal, satisfied.

But if there was even the slightest chance, just a one in ten thousand possibility, that Xie Zhuo truly wanted to kill me… then by helping him prevent Xie Xuanqing from giving Xiaxia his blood, ensuring she didn’t drink it, when we returned to five hundred years later, our blood oath would disappear, and I would essentially be handing the knife directly to Xie Zhuo…

What I would get would be a dead end.

Comparing these two options…

Of course, I would choose to save my life!

It’s a matter of life and death! I don’t care if Xie Zhuo can sever our past marriage bond or not.

I was dragged here in confusion in the first place, and I’ve been rushing about helping him just so I could go back. How could I risk my precious life for his demands?

Fortunately, Xie Xuanqing seemed reliable. Standing beside me, he tried to work out a solution: “I cannot meet him. You also cannot meet your present self, so we must lure him out.”

After sorting out the relationships and weighing the pros and cons, I also set aside all my emotions and rationally came up with a plan: “Put me down first, not too close to the center of the tribulation clouds, or who knows what might happen.”

Xie Xuanqing followed my instructions and set me down on the ground.

This spot was about ten miles away from the center of the tribulation clouds with all the lightning—that is, from my immortal residence. Not too far, not too close.

I took out a dagger and directly slashed it toward my palm, but before the dagger could pierce my palm, Xie Xuanqing grabbed my hand.

Indeed, with his blood in my body, protecting me was his instinctive reaction. Regardless of which version of him it was.

“What are you doing?” he asked me.

I pushed his hand away: “Isn’t it obvious? I’m using your Snow Wolf clan’s blood power! If I’m injured and bleeding, threatening to kill myself, won’t that make Xie Zhuo rush out immediately?”

Xie Xuanqing remained silent.

“Don’t worry about me. You should go hide somewhere else first. When Xie Zhuo comes out, I’ll create a big disturbance. When you hear it, quickly go to the center of the tribulation clouds.” I looked at Xie Xuanqing with unprecedented seriousness.

“Xie Xuanqing, you must feed blood to the other me,” I instructed him as if entrusting my final wishes. “Our relationship cannot end like this.”

Thunder rumbled in the clouds above. Xie Xuanqing looked at me for a moment. He wasn’t one to hesitate, and soon nodded.

“Alright…”

He made me a promise, and I knew he would fulfill it.

I watched his figure disappear in the farthest distance I could see. Without further hesitation, I slashed downward with the dagger, and blood immediately flowed from my palm.

After just a moment, my ear felt warm, my earring glowed, and Xie Zhuo’s voice flashed in my mind: “What are you doing?”

I raised both hands—one holding the knife, the other bleeding—and placed the dagger against my wrist: “Xie Zhuo, get out here.”

Xie Zhuo didn’t speak, but in the next moment, the scene before his eyes appeared in my mind.

On his side, the sky was filled with pitch-black tribulation clouds, Xiaxia lay unconscious on the ground, and beside him was the barrier Xie Zhuo had created, absorbing all the tribulation lightning from the sky one by one.

“Do you want to die, Fu Jiuxia?”

Xie Zhuo’s deep, angry voice seemed to be right next to my ear.

I weighed my options again internally. If “I” were to be struck by a couple of tribulation lightning bolts, I probably wouldn’t die.

But if Xie Zhuo truly helped me pass through the tribulation, if Xie Xuanqing couldn’t feed blood to Xiaxia, and the blood oath between Xie Zhuo and me disappeared… then when he came out, I might die.

I’m sorry, past self!

To survive, you’ll have to endure some lightning strikes!

My dagger pierced the skin of my wrist, and I slowly uttered two commanding words:

“Come out…”

How could someone like Xie Zhuo be fooled by an act? I immediately applied pressure with my right hand, and as the dagger was about to sever the veins in my wrist, a fierce wind suddenly arose in the sky, and the scene in my mind abruptly changed.

In my mind, I saw my image—hair wildly dancing, clothes fluttering, blood and dagger amid the raging wind and lightning storm, carrying the desperation of someone at the end of their rope.

And perhaps Xie Zhuo also saw in his mind the image of him snatching the dagger from me, furious, astonished, disbelieving, and gritting his teeth.

You and I have perhaps never been so clear and overlapping in each other’s eyes.

Objectively speaking, the me in his eyes was quite beautiful.